Tuesday November 30th 2021

10:30 Yikes! - Lois is in the front room putting away some crockery and cutlery, when she sees my new-found cousin David and his wife Zanne driving onto our forecourt, before driving off again, and then driving back again. What madness! They've arrived half an hour early but luckily we're all ready for them, so no problem there - they found the journey from their home in North Oxfordshire less congested than they expected, which is nice to hear.

a cartoonist's impression of the scene on our sofa this morning -

(left to right) me, Zanne and David.

My sister Gill thinks that David and I look alike and have the same voice, but Lois isn't so sure, so the jury's still out on that one.

David is a BBC online journalist, adopted as a baby in 1959, whom I discovered to be a cousin as the result of a DNA test. He retired recently but had previously been working on the BBC News website, which by coincidence is my own principal source of news, because it isn't sensationalist like so much of the online news media today, and they don't use words like "chaos", "fury", "disbelief" etc unless they are truly warranted. David has also in previous years worked on his local daily newspaper the  Oxford Mail.

A scene during the night-shift at BBC Television Centre, Bush House, 

a picture which online journalist David took a few years ago

Zanne is into language teaching, and a few years ago David took a career break from the BBC and the couple moved, together with their 3 children, out to the Mediterranean island of Majorca for a spell, so that Zanne could boost her own career teaching EFL (English as a foreign language). As a result their 3 children are now reasonably fluent in Mallorquin, the dialect of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands.

Time for a coffee and some scones. And the four of us, Lois included, sit and chat for 2 and a half hours, scarcely stopping to draw breath. Lois and I have a lot in common with them, that's for sure. 

And we also discover a number of coincidences between our lives: Zanne studied at Lancaster University, just like our daughter Sarah. David lived in the Kingsbury area of North West London as a boy, just like me and my late siblings Kathy and Steve. And so it goes on. Zanne also has ancestors who lived in the tiny village of Cumnor near Oxford, as has Lois. 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

Zanne knows well the area of Cheltenham we live in now - she recognised our neighbourhood as soon as she and David drove into the area this morning, because she once had an aunt who lived about half a mile away, whom she frequently visited as a child. And as we found out last month, in the early 1970's when Lois and I first moved to Cheltenham, David's father Peter was living about a mile away from us near the Old Bath Road.

And so it goes on. It's a small world - no doubt about that!

13:00 We say goodbye to David and Zanne, but we feel totally drained. We're no longer used to long chats, since the pandemic and lockdowns began. We have lunch and then Lois has a walk round the local football field, while I put the recycling boxes out on the kerbside for collection early tomorrow morning. When she comes back we go to bed for a nap - we're tired all right: no doubt about that. My god!

a tired Lois takes a walk around the local football field

16:00 We roll out of bed. My god - what have all the lockdowns done to us haha!

19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her Great-niece Molly's yoga class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "One Foot In The Grave", about irascible retiree Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife, Margaret.

In this week's rerun episode, Victor and Margaret are visiting their god-daughter Jennifer, who's just about to go on holiday. Jennifer has asked the couple to look after her pet tortoise Kylie while she's away.

I enjoy this episode because it features the first appearance in the series of one of my favourite characters in the sitcom, Jennifer's Auntie Norma, a shy woman who lives with Jennifer and her young daughter.

Victor and Margaret are sitting with Jennifer in Jennifer's living-room when Norma appears behind a door with frosted panes of glass. 

a specially enhanced close-up of a corner of our TV screen reveals 

the ultra-shy Auntie Norma, watching proceedings through a frosted glass door

 in the top right-hand corner of the screen

Apparently the shy Norma feels safer being on the other side of the door, and she doesn't realise that Jennifer's guests can see her. I must try that myself some time!

Admittedly there's always a  slight air of menace about Norma on the other side of the door. Will she suddenly go berserk and come rushing into the room with an axe in her hand? Hopefully not, at any rate!

19:30 Lois emerges from her zoom yoga session, and, as her sect's weekly Tuesday Bible Seminar is taking a break this week, we both settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV, one of the Two Ronnies (Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett) comedy specials.

Who knew that when the Two Ronnies retired from their TV work in the UK, they spent a year or two down under in Australia producing more of their shows? 

It's pretty much the familiar "Two Ronnies" territory as usual, although there are a few local references thrown into the scripts. For instance who or what is "Rooty Hill", two words that send the local Australian studio audience into paroxysms of laughter every time they hear them? 

I don't know, but I think we should be told. And quickly!

This sketch features the two Ronnies as old codgers sitting with their newspapers in their London club, discussing Corbett's sister.

Tremendous fun !!!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!